[Electro-neurological correlations of the early stages of acute traumatic secondary midbrain and bulbar brain syndrome (author's transl)].

One hundred and sixty-five EEGs were analysed from 140 patients in postraumatic coma with secondary traumatic midbrain and bulbar syndrome. The EEG-pattern was related to the stage of midbrain of bulbar syndrome caused by supratentorial brain shift. There was a close relation between EEG-pattern and the grade of rostro-caudal impairment. A decrease in the number of different EEG-patterns was associated with increasing intra-cranial pressure. An unfavourable state of coma was indicated by the disappearance of sleep or sleep-like activities, alternating pattern and loss of reactivity. In deep stages of coma the neurological examination reveals no lateralizing signs at all. The EEG gives the only hint to a local cerebral lesion. EEG-abnormalities due to the herniation itself interferred with the EEG-changes due to secondary circulatory, respiratory and metabolic encephalopathies. In such cases the above mentioned regularities were blurred.